


Memories

by Zerrat



Category: Dissidia Duodecim: Final Fantasy, Dissidia: Final Fantasy
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Community: ff_land, Gen, Lost Memory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-28
Updated: 2012-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-22 19:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zerrat/pseuds/Zerrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The weight of memory can break you, and Tifa once knew that. In the shattered lands of Dissidia, she also finds that they can drag you back onto your feet and give you a reason to fight on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shinkirou](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shinkirou/gifts).



> Canonical character death and non-graphic violence. Takes place in the usual sort of 'floating' timeline of events prior to the first manikin appearing, and then moves through the game.
> 
> Beta'd by [tjemd](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tjemd) who was kind enough to fix up my rampant typos and errors.
> 
> Written for shinkirou_hana. Hope this is what you were looking for! If not, drop me a line and I can do something more fluffy. D:

It felt like there were reminders of old regrets everywhere Tifa looked in this place, even though she knew there were vital pieces of puzzle that were simply missing in her mind. Those regrets seemed to hang off her like unseen weights, causing innocent objects or turns of phrase to reach out and unexpectedly choke her with raw emotion at all the worst times.  
   
Regret was not an uncommon thing for the others, either. Here, memories were a fickle thing at the best of times. They were prizes to be earned in battle like they were no more attached to her than the gil in her pocket, but even so they were laden with power. Those with the most memories held the most power - that was the way this world of war worked.  
   
Tifa's feelings of loss and regret never seemed to be centered around anything specific, but that had been before the Warrior of Light had decided to rally his scattered troops and had summoned them from across the ruined world. Looking back, Tifa could pinpoint the very moment that her regrets had gone from feelings to ghosts.  
   
They had all met at Order's Sanctuary to prepare for the Warrior's next plan of attack. Split up as they'd been, trying to cover as much ground as possible with as few people as they had, it had been the first time Tifa had had a chance to meet most of the others.  
   
She remembered thinking back then, as she, Laguna and Vaan had approached, that the small and ragtag group looked less like a goddess' army and more like a barely-there resistance force. Tifa's stomach had done an odd sort of backflip at the thought, even if her memory continued to fail her.  
   
As the Warrior of Light told them all of his latest strategy to turn the tide of the war, breaking them into groups again with careful instructions as to their next targets, Tifa had found herself in the company of two Cosmos warriors whom she hadn't yet met.  
   
One was a soldier, with an apathetic blue gaze and fair, spiky hair who made Tifa think of old wounds and wasted time. She was reminded of the Chaos warrior – the one that had saved her not long prior. The other was soft, dark haired and gifted in magic. Looking at the young woman, Tifa's greetings suddenly stuck in her throat and all she could think of was loss and death.  
   
Something more vivid than lost memories fell like shadows between them, and only Tifa seemed to see them at all.  
   
The fair-haired soldier – "Lightning," the woman had supplied when Tifa had finally snapped out of it - seemed to naturally fall into leadership, and as they travelled across the gray and broken world to where the Emperor was holed up in his glimmering castle, Tifa felt only too happy to follow her lead. Yuna wisely fell to support and summoning, and while neither of them could be considered talkative or open, Tifa slowly grew to know the people she was travelling with.  
   
Initially, the ghosts were strongest around Lightning - it was in those serious blue eyes, the impossible feats of swordsmanship, and the grudging trust fostered when they fought side by side. It was in those moments of unintentional goofiness said with a perfectly straight face, and it all felt so familiar that Tifa was _sure_ they'd met before, impossible though it was.  
   
The ghosts were different when it came to Yuna. Unlike Lightning, the memories triggered by Yuna weren't directly overwhelming and in the beginning she was the safe one, the one Tifa looked to when it felt like she was drowning in half-formed maybes.  
   
When Tifa found it in her to _push_ and get to know the young summoner, Yuna's forced smile grew playful and her laughter became genuine. She had seemed soft when they had first met, but that had been before Tifa had seen her summon all sorts of creatures to her side with an iron will.  
   
Yuna seemed naive, but she was wiser than many other veterans of the war.  
   
She reminded Tifa of someone else, a friend from before.  
   
It didn't really feel all that surprising when it was Yuna who ended up pulling Tifa aside. She seemed to say that she understood what Tifa was going through, with her memories all muddled and broken, and perhaps the only saving grace of that particular conversation was that Yuna said to her, "It gets easier."  
   
Tifa was still surprised when it _did._  
   
The details of her old memories felt like they hardly changed - bits and pieces here, fragments there. But the longer she travelled with Yuna and Lightning, the more memories she made of the _now,_ the happier and clearer she felt. Tifa owed more to them than some vestigial friendship based on the ghosts of her past - she trusted and believed in them for who they _were._  
   
Soon afterward, Tifa became aware of a dark shadow dogging her footsteps. Tifa remembered how badly their last meeting had ended, when they made camp that night she slipped away. She still had precious few memories from her own world, but when he stepped out from the shadows of a mountain - his smile cruel and his sword in hand - his name flashed to mind.  
   
 _Sephiroth._  
   
Memories were power in the war between Order and Chaos. While Tifa hadn't been afraid of him before, and her close encounter with him at the start of the war hadn't been anything worse than what she'd faced later, something had changed. She remembered having _been_ afraid, the shadow of memory feeling hollow but no less alarming.  
   
She'd known since the first encounter that Sephiroth was a threat to her, but it was worse now because Tifa remembered him being a threat to her _friends._ She chanced a look over her shoulder as Sephiroth raised his sword, making sure both Yuna and Lightning had not seen fit to slip away after her.  
   
Whatever awful things Sephiroth had caused in her past, Tifa was not about to stand by and let history repeat itself, and she attacked him with a viciousness that surprised even herself.  
   
He caught her boot on his blade's edge, his eyes narrowed and measuring as they exchanged a rapid series of back-and-forth blows.  
   
"You have your memories back." It wasn't a question, and when Tifa felt his blade _waver_ when he blocked another of her kicks, she smiled. On some level, she knew this wasn't the way things ever went back home.  
   
Things were different here though, and so were the rules of power.  
   
"No," Tifa told him, forcing him back as she set her stance. "Just made some new ones instead!"  
   
He seemed to decide something then, and with smooth grace he lowered his impossibly long sword. A sense of wrongness seized her, because she understood now that Sephiroth never backed down, not unless there was something to be gained. Tifa didn't lower her guard, matching his glare stubbornly.  
   
"This game bores me," Sephiroth drawled, and he turned his back on her. "I have other means to my end, and another game to play. Enjoy your _victory_ while it lasts."  
   
Tifa only relaxed when she felt the killing intent dissipate from the air, and then she remembered Yuna and Lightning back at camp. Her stomach grew icy, and then she was running across the ruined landscape, as fast as she could because it would happen all over again -  
   
Tifa struggled at the edge of a memory, certain it would come to her if only she pushed at it harder. She forced the memory aside, because she had no more time.  
   
Tifa burst into the quiet campsite, trying to see everywhere at once, her mind filled with blood stained pink ribbons and stone-faced puppets. To her right, Yuna rose smoothly to her feet, a calming strength with the weight of many wars. Upon hearing of Tifa's encounter with Sephiroth, Lightning searched the perimeter for the warrior of Chaos, but when she returned she'd come up empty handed.  
   
Tifa began to wonder, then, exactly what "game" Sephiroth had been referring to in his parting words to her. Not long after, the first manikins appeared, and suddenly the rules of the game changed entirely. All lingering thoughts of a greater game were forgotten as the war became a slaughter. Allies betrayed them and the warriors of Cosmos struggled to stem the tide of tireless, mindless monsters made of crystal.  
   
At the end of the war, even the strength from new friends and new memories was not enough as Tifa and the others tried to seal the Rift at the Paradox. She fell all too quickly, beaten down until she had nothing left to give, forced to watch as her friends fought on.  
   
Helpless _again._  
   
She watched Yuna fall to her knees as her Aeons failed her and her strength ran dry. Tifa saw a manikin reflection of Sephiroth sweep his crystal sword behind her, and she couldn't look away as it ended her quickly and brutally. It all seemed far too much like the memories Tifa half-remembered.  
   
Lightning was the last to fall, driving herself on past human levels of endurance as she fought with the fevered need to show she was no puppet of the gods. Her opponents didn't care or respect that, hammering down with relentless hunger, and in the end Lightning had held out just long enough.  
   
Odin's blades sealed the Rift and ended the flood of crystal manikins, but it was the end. When Shinryu purged the land, Tifa's dimmed awareness faded with the friends who had stood with her at the Paradox. Her new memories and new friendships fled her grasp as old ones crowded back in.

For an instant, she knew it all, but when Tifa woke up in Edge she remembered nothing.


End file.
